Fill Yourself Up! (The Oxygen Mask Rule)

It is insidious, how, little by little we give up doing things for ourselves, because we believe that we should be spending more time with out child. Until finally we realize that we are doing nothing for our own pure enjoyment anymore. Everything is a compromise, or hinged on that love we have for our child. We end up having no 1:1 time with ourselves, and instead we snatch stolen moments at the computer while we yell to the other room “just a moment honey…”

The Mask We Live In: watch this for your children and LOVE YOURSELF

Life is Easy!!! … and simple: a great way to learn about who we are is to pay attention to how we feel inside our bodies throughout the day.

The Good Enough Motherhood Process

“Dear Riviera,
What do you do for a teen who picked a major clearly not suited for them? Do you let them take the classes or do you talk them out of it and advise them to sign up for the classes that better suit them? Especially if you are worried that it was your biases that influenced that wrong decision in the first place….?”

Body Centered Listening, part 2

Whole body listening doesn’t have to involve your ears at all. It can take place completely inside your body. It is all about identifying how things feel to you, and then making a decision based on whether something feels “good,” or “not so good.”

Heart Centered Listening vs Body Centered Listening.

If your child (or someone else) screaming “I want to stay!!!!!” Makes you want to scram and extinguish that screeching…

When a Parent’s ‘I Love You’ Means ‘Do as I Say’

When a Parent’s ‘I Love You’ Means ‘Do as I Say’

mentoring versus modeling (living versus acting)

We often hear caregivers prompt children to behave a certain way “Say hello!” “Say goodbye!” “Say thank you!” or our favorites: “You’re OK!” and “That’s not scary! Why are you afraid? You don’t have to be!”

So what’s next….Will they be calling you from college for social cues? Or, will they become like the proverbial joke about the henpecked husband, who, when offered a choice of custard for dessert, turns to his wife, asking “Dear, do I like custard?”

Taking a Step Back….

My critical self-judgment has probably been the most difficult thing to overcome in being parent. It seems I am never enough. whew. I never do enough for my children, don’t do it well enough, don’t love them enough, I’m not patient enough with them, not energetic enough for them, not sweet enough for them. That condemning JUDGE inside me tells me in so many ways how I am simply NOT enough.

Men Should Not Cry (What are You Living Toward?)

You see a 5 year old child who is crying and screaming, sobbing about something. His parents are sitting with him, trying to sooth him. You might think “That child cannot control his emotions. He is emotionally immature. He needs to learn how to control his emotions.”

Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills

The way that children spend their time has changed. A growing number of psychologists believe that these changes in what children do has also changed kids’ cognitive and emotional development.

It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline.

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